Crown Hill church to be demolished

By Zachariah Bryan

01/17/2013

Update, Jan. 18, 4:30 p.m.: Here is what we learned so far. Crown Hill Lutheran Church, while no longer used for church service, is still being rented out for several programs, including a weekly hot meal program and a preschool. The Phinneywood Neighborhood Association has the lease according to PNA Executive Director Lee Harper, whom we spoke to on the phone.

Those programs will continue to run up until the end of the lease, which is in August. Preschool, since it's largely based on the academic year, may be wrapped up in June.

PNA is still looking for locations for both, and they want to stay in the Ballard/Crown Hill/Phinney/Greenwood area. If you know of a place, or are interested in hosting one or the other, you can shoot Harper an email at leeh@phinneycenter.org.

While Lee is sad to be leaving the space, she said PNA knew what they were getting into when they signed the lease.

Compass Housing Alliance originally was going to put low-income housing at the location, but instead chose another spot, the Nyer Urness House to be built on 1753 NW 56th St. Right now, by the sounds of it, they are either in the process of selling the property or already have. We have a call and an email in and are waiting for a response.

Lee said Compass were great partners and PNA has no regrets.

"We are disappointed to be moving, and were hoping it would last a few more years, but we knew it was temporary," Lee wrote in an email. "We will work with the new owner to determine an official end date on site for our programs, but it will be sometime this summer."

A church group also meets once a week, and other programs use the old church as well, Lee said.

Original, Jan. 17: Right now you can spot it a mile away, but in the near future, it could be toast. We just spotted a Department of Planning and Development application to demolish the Crown Hill Lutheran Church, which takes up a sizable 9,000 sq. ft. on the corner of 15th Ave NW and NW 90th St.

In order for demolition to go forward, there still needs to be a SEPA Environmental Determination, which means you have time to put forward comments. You can do so by visiting the DPD listing at http://web1.seattle.gov/dpd/luib/Notice.aspx?BID=783&NID=14667 and clicking on "Comment on Application" up toward the top.

We don't know much about the building at the moment, save that it's currently unused and that it was built in 1957. If you know something about it's history, or have some memories there, email us at zachb@robinsonnews.com.

In the meantime, we'll update if there's any news on what (if anything) is going in the space.

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